Vestager Seeks Patents Overhaul Amid Court Fights Over Cars (bloomberg.com) 15
The European Union will seek to overhaul the system for key patents such as those that have fueled legal battles between car makers and technology companies, the EU's technology chief said Wednesday. From a report: Margrethe Vestager promised that regulators will weigh reforms to improve the framework in place for so-called standard-essential patents and work on industry-led initiatives "to reduce frictions and litigation." The EU move could help avoid repeats of lengthy legal battles such as Nokia Oyj's effort to get Daimler AG to pay more for mobile technology used in cars. While Daimler wants the underlying patents be licensed to its various component suppliers, Nokia wants to charge per car at a much higher price. Companies often seek court help to determine whether certain technology patents are valid and how much should be paid for licensing technology seen as essential for an industry. The EU has frequently been asked to weigh in on how much is fair for key technology. "There's quite a lot of litigation back and forth and in the short-term we would want to push for industry to figure out how to set up foras to enable discussions and mediation so that maybe to a bigger degree it can be solved out of court," Vestager said. The current system to set up so-called standard essential patents deemed key to certain technology "is not very transparent," she said. "This is why we will consider a very close consultation with anyone involved whether we should set up a third-party essential 'reality check' so someone outside of your business" can rule on whether a patent is really important or not.
Very odd (Score:2)
"in a" "on a" and "with a" patents need to die (Score:2)
This is the lowest effort least IQ possible "invention" and the companies rent seeking and the lawyers submitting patent requests need to be sterilised so they don't breed.
Good work Nokia, you created a phone, that doesn't allow you to extract patents for phone IN A CAR! or phone ON A COMPUTER.
OEM (Score:5, Informative)
I've worked on OEM car electronics. The patents aren't on cell phones. They are on self-negotiating multifrequency spectrum hopping algorithms and low-latency error resistant data codecs.
You are right in that there are a lot of garbage patents, like "JPEGS but in a web browser" or "web browser but in a car." Most of the core technology cell phone patents are not those.
More specifically (Score:3)
There seems to be a common misconception about patents, one that we can possibly help alleviate by being careful to be accurate in our choice of words. You said:
> The patents aren't on cell phones. They are on self-negotiating multifrequency spectrum hopping algorithms and low-latency error resistant data codecs
I believe one might find a patent for a particular aspect of a specific new error-resistant codec, correct?
Sometimes people see a headline and they think "this company just patented error correct
Re: (Score:3)
No, because software patents are offically not allowed in Europe. So the patent has to be on a thing, not a method or algorithm.
Re: (Score:2)
They are on self-negotiating multifrequency spectrum hopping algorithms and low-latency error resistant data codecs.
So precisely the kind of patents that Qualcomm should be paying for. Or do Ford, etc roll their own RF silicon now
Margrethe Vestager (Score:5, Informative)
Margrethe Vestager is formally a Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age. She used to be European Commissioner for Competition - basically, if there were a big court case in relation to competition in the last many years in EU she was likely behind it. My understanding is that her new job is a promotion from her old, but that she mostly does similar work and got promoted due to being popular in Europe (Trump not liking her helped).
Re: (Score:3)
She is also still the commisioner for competition, besides her shared vice president of the Commission role.
Patents (Score:2)
Nothing to see here. This is just the Model T design being dusted off and refiled by appending "using the Internet".
It all happend over 100 years ago. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Eh, this is about cars using mobile technology, can't you even read the summary?
Nokia holds essential patents and they charge automakers for each connected car that uses them. Normally with these patents you pay more for more expensive products, e.g. for a car you would be asked to pay much more than a phone. Daimler does not want to pay, they are arguing that they buy a networking part from a third party company, so that company has to pay the license and of course the cost of the license would be proporti
Re: (Score:3)
Daimler isn't cheating here; this case is all about the concept of patent exhaustion.
Basically, if a supplier buys a chip that has a patented something in it, and puts that in a component and pays the patent fee for that chip, Daimler is arguing that the license has been satisfied.
Companies like Nokia, however, don't want patent exhaustion - they want to charge the supplier, the automaker, and the end user individually for licenses.
I would love to see laws say that you can't have patent terms that are based
Re: (Score:2)
I would suggest Daimler is charged based on the price they would charge the consumer if the part that uses the patent failed outside of warranty.
Re: It all happend over 100 years ago. (Score:2)
The problem here is obvious: "I only make these for Daimler- prove that I don't!" while a zillion grey-market items fall off a truck. Oh, says Nokia, just let me look at your records, I'm sure everything's fine. What, without any kind of contractual relationship with you I can't? Geez.